B.C. government announces more resources for gang violence

The B.C. government will spend $23 million more for police, prosecutors and programs to combat the province’s gangs and gun problem.

Premier Christy Clark announced the new funding in Surrey Friday, where there have been 32 shootings so far this year, primarily over drug-trade turf wars.

But she stressed that B.C.’s gang problem is not isolated to one community because gangsters are like “cockroaches” who move frequently to ply their illegal trade.

“The frequency and public nature of recent gang shootings is unacceptable and demands this additional, strategic deployment of resources. People deserve to feel safe no matter where they live in B.C.,” Clark said. “This needs to be a provincewide initiative.”

The money is going to several programs:

• B.C.’s anti-gang police unit, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, will create two new 10-person teams “to support police in communities around the province,” Clark said.

• Some money will go to an existing program that targets the most violent gangsters and their networks, no matter where they are in B.C.

• Funds, which will be “flowing immediately,” will pay for dedicated prosecutors to push forward cases against priority criminals, Clark said.

• She said there would also be money for increasing the capacity for electronic monitoring of high-risk offenders when they’re on bail or serving sentences in the community.

• Crime Stoppers will get $450,000 in cash to offer rewards to those with information about gangs or guns.

• Some of the money will be put into CFSEU’s successful End Gang Life program, where officers do presentations to schools and community groups around B.C.

• Funding will also be used to establish an Office of Crime Reduction and Gang Outreach, which will help gangsters wanting to change their lives.

• The province is also creating an illegal firearms task force to study and strengthen provincial and federal programs related to illegal firearms.

Clark stood with her Public Safety Minister Mike Morris and senior RCMP and municipal police officers outside the RCMP’s B.C. headquarters in Surrey. Just a week earlier, it was a similar scene with Morris addressing the media in Surrey about the danger of gangs, but without committing any new funding.

On Friday, Morris said “enhancing public safety in the face of recent shootings means pulling out all the stops.”

“We are strengthening our strategies and our front-line capacity to get guns off the street, putting gangsters behind bars and increasing our efforts to ensure young people understand gang life is a dead end,” he said. “Our multi-faceted approach is designed to effectively and quickly counter both the gunplay and its roots.”

“We appreciate the additional funding and support being provided to the RCMP, CFSEU-BC and our law enforcement partners, who are all working together to target, investigate, prosecute and disrupt those individuals and groups that pose the highest risk to public safety in our province,” Callens said. “As part of B.C.’s guns and gangs strategy, we will be heightening our enforcement activities, increasing the level of information and intelligence-sharing and enhancing our prevention and community engagement programs.”

B.C. will look at whether laws need to be changed to better deal with gangsters and gun crimes, Clark said.

“Gangs evolve. Criminals come up with new ways to commit crimes,” she said.

Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner attended the announcement and said afterwards she hoped the extra money would make a difference.

“I really like the fact that they are adding prosecutors,” she said.

Surrey-Newton NDP MLA Harry Bains said he was pleased the government was finally investing in resources to fight the violence.

“Overall, I am happy because after three years of ignoring this problem, three years of pressure from us the opposition and the community, they are reacting,” said Bains.

But he said there wasn’t enough focus in the announcement on prevention programs.

“There are parents out there who are looking for support when they see their child is having some problems and may be moving in the wrong direction and they are not getting the support right now,” he said.

Even the Surrey school board’s success WRAP program for at-risk students has a waiting list, Bains said.

“These children should not be waiting when they need help today, they should receive help today.”

Bains said some of the money should be going to the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team given that dozens of gang murders in recent years remain unsolved.

“Those who kill, they walk around knowing no one is even going to catch them, arrest them, never mind putting them in jail. So there is no deterrence there.”

His own nephew Arun Bains was gunned down in Surrey a year ago and the murder remains unsolved.

“Individual families deserve support from government so they can put an end to their suffering or at least they can move forward and know the person who committed that crime is behind bars and they are not going to harm anyone else,” Bains said.

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